


Think of the Children

by Austell



Category: Awesomenauts
Genre: Backstory: Ayla, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austell/pseuds/Austell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All lives have value. All value depreciates. All mistakes have consequences. Every action is a mistake. All dragons are slain by knights. All knights are slain by dragons. This is a pointless story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Think of the Children

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Daily Story Seed: Only Light for Witness](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/105360) by Max Kirin. 



> I did not shy from clichés as I did from proper editing procedure. I hope the story is at least well-told.

The sword of the knight was heavy on his back as he trudged through the wastes. It was a massive thing, nearly a handspan wide and more than half of his incredible height in length. The knight had come a very long way in his search: he had not stopped to sleep or to bask, and his translucent skin was slack and oozy with weariness. The sword was not heavy because of any of those reasons.

The knight was called the Scoop of Justice. Heavy on his back was the burden of duty.

Scoop raised his sand-encrusted head and clicked his tongue twice. The echo that resonated in his teeth showed an endless expanse of flat, barren rock: no landmark, natural or artificial, had answered his echolocations since he had first arrived here, five days ago. This planet had none of the attractions of its illustrious siblings, no humming cities or sleepy towns or rare goods to make war over—hardly anything at all except a few tired old mountains and scattered clumps of the crooked, emaciated trees that kept the atmosphere just barely breathable. Even criminals seldom fled here, for the planet offered them no hiding places.

This one was an exception, however, and Scoop would find her.

The wind changed direction, abruptly. Scoop stopped to taste the air; something in it had drawn his attention.

Since he had landed, he had not lost track of his quarry. She had left marks of her passage: tiny drops of blood, cloth scraps, or soot markings on the ground, just enough to alert his keen powers of detection and know that he was going the right way. They had come with such regularity that Scoop wondered if it was a deliberate effort, perhaps motivated by that weak throb of guilt that the better of criminals sometimes experienced. But the extent of her deeds made any idea of repentance absurd.

It did not matter, at any rate. The success of his pursuit was certain, and now it was imminent. Scoop breathed deeply, and there it was again—not some faint trace of soot, but the acidic tang of wafting smoke carried on the fierce gusts of the wind. There was a fire nearby, and only one person who could have lit it.

The Scoop of Justice slithered towards the source, baring his teeth to better hear the distant crackle of the flames; and presently, he perceived the shape of a tent in the distance. It was a makeshift affair, a cotton sheet tied over a conical frame, and no more than a metre tall; but it was a blemish on the featureless landscape, impossible to miss. As he approached, the shape of a small pile of wood became apparent beside the tent, and he felt heat radiating from it, easing the stiffness of his limbs. He glided warily towards it, searching for the fugitive.

And he heard her voice, just then: "Come closer."

Where? He spat out a sharp trill, and his hand jerked to his shoulder, ready to draw his sword; but he could detect nothing - only the fire, crackling stoutly amid the chilly gusts of wind. He strode furiously towards it, and there was a delicate tickling sensation—like slipping through the surface of a pool of water—and the wind stopped blowing.

The air had changed in texture; it was warmer, and carried the scent, not just of smoke, but of unwashed cloth—traces of milk—a few drops of blood. There was a slow exhalation from beside the fire, and suddenly Scoop could hear the slow beating of a heart.

Rustling, a shift in position, every movement as loud as a whisper uttered directly into Scoop's gritted teeth. The shape of the fugitive resolved out of the nothingness. She had been sitting there, cross-legged, all along, and had only raised an arm to wave hello.

"I've been waiting for you," she said softly. Her voice was a pure, cold monotone with no inflection at all.

But Scoop had no intention of listening to any kind of voice. He lunged like a steel spring uncoiling, raising his heavy sword to strike the first and final blow.

"Right of confession," she said—her speech quick, but still betraying no urgency—and Scoop halted suddenly, shocked to hear the words.

"Right of confession," she repeated. "You have a principle—a law—you do, yes."

Scoop towered over her, snarling. How dare she invoke—"I do dare," she responded, "for it is the right of all. I do not deny your quest—your judgement. You will get your executioner's blow; but first sit down with me."

He lowered his sword to the ground, though grudgingly. His flesh boiled with anger, but fairness was also his duty, even fairness to a fiend like this. He stood back, teeth bared in a grimace of attention, and growled, "Then speak; and—"

"It wo'n't take too long," she interjected. "I will just recount to you what you know less well than you think."

Scoop clicked under his breath, studying this fugitive whose features he had already memorised. She was a skeletoned creature, as most were, a solid skin stretched over a rigid frame of bone and cartilage and packed with muscles and organs. She was tall and so slender that her skin hung slack on her, and almost never seemed to move; her bony fingers sat still in her lap, her tapered ears never twitched, and two of her large eyes, those socketed organs that absorbed light, were closed. Only the one that sat in the middle of her forehead gazed unblinkingly at her guest as she spoke.

"I am a Sadak, yes, and can see your thoughts," she said, answering a question he would not have asked. "You did not know this. It is right to be surprised. You know many things about us, and are surprised that you have ignorance left to uncover."

"I don't—" he began.

"See the point? It is a summary of my meaning." The Sadak's speech was strangely difficult to interrupt; it reverberated in the sphere of calm that surrounded them. "You know what I did, and you know what you are going to do to me. But I know both of those things as well, perhaps better than you do. The accusation you bring against me is damning, but I have purpose still."

Scoop sneered. "You are trying—"

"I will beg—yes—but not for my life, not quite. First: you know the war. It is what brought you here, at first. By now it is common knowledge, but when I stepped off the interplanetary no one had the least idea about it. I was not there, as you think, with the intention of taking lives, Scoop. It was simply a terrible accident."

That was enough. "Accident!" Scoop snapped - "you are fain to talk so trivially of what you have done!" He stabbed a finger at the Sadak's impassive face. "It must be easy to keep your famous calm, to reserve judgement, to rationalise and reason about a monstrous act as long as it is to absolve yourself of blame. But no high-minded excuse will bring back what you've destroyed. Nothing can; do you understand?"

"That - "

" _Nothing_."

Scoop glared at the fugitive, who simply looked back with her wide, expressionless eye. "I am patient," he continued, "but not so patient as this. My sword itches to spill your miserable guts. I will see justice done, and I'll suffer no one to tell me that this is not justice in its fullest form." He oozed closer, menacing her with his finger. "An accident! You did not stub your toe. You did not fall off a ladder. You are not some unknowing child at play. You came to that city, you heartless wretch, you hid yourself away among innocents, you waited until the moment you could have gotten away unnoticed - and then you bombed them." His voice trembled with fury. "One hundred thousand dead. Can your enlightened mind comprehend how many that is? One hundred thousand living beings who slaved and suffered and prayed through life, just to meet this absurd end. Forty thousand workers, ten thousand families, thirty-five thousand little children who had never tasted ice cream in their lives—one hundred thousand loved ones, and each and every one of them murdered by you."

He stopped. He could have gone on, but however ferociously his rage burned in him, it could not warm the night. His words would taper away into smoke, and be snatched away by the wind.

"An accident!" he growled bitterly, turning away. "As if that changes anything."

Eventually, quietly, the Sadak resumed. "You are right, of course. It changes no one's fate: not theirs, not mine, and not yours."

What did she—"Mean? I understand. You think you failed, in permitting this tragedy to happen. Your feeling towards the people goes far beyond duty—you care for them not just because they are your house's customers, but because their safety was entrusted to you, and nothing is dearer to you than what only you can protect."

"What are you talking about now? That—"

"—Does not matter now, but it will soon. Your noble feeling will save many lives yet, perhaps even more than you count yourself responsible for losing now. It has been the dream of— of many Sadak to do the same. We hold in ourselves an extraordinary potential, you know. We see it—speak it—think it—breathe it. It is in our every action, wild and deadly. We were all born this way—all of us, together." Her lower eyes flickered under their lids. Her droning voice had acquired a more expressive cadence. "So we all learn to stop. We close our eyes. We withhold our voices. We empty our minds. We hold our breaths until the wildness cannot escape any more: we hold it inside us, all our lives, and let out only a puff when the time is right. We learn absolute self-containment, for only afterwards can we begin to turn this potential into power."

The Sadak paused to inhale, slowly and delicately. It was the first movement Scoop had seen her make since the conversation began.

"You know us this way: perfect to the last. It is private knowledge that we are not born with this calm in us; but the values of our culture no longer matter, do they?" She smiled, briefly and blandly, indicating no emotion. "Empty minds are easily filled by what the eyes see. I was not perfect. I should not have looked."

Scoop could not help but understand her meaning.

"Indeed. Seveneleveia is a wonderful city to visit, but at the moment the announcement was issued, the countenance of the place darkened. Curiosity gave way to shock, and small anxieties to torrential fear. It was as if I had been transported to a different world. I could see desperation expanding inside them like bubbles of nitrogen. You think panic begins when the first scream is uttered; in that silent hour I saw people slowly becoming their own screams. My soul was swollen with their horror, and I could not look away. But—" she added suddenly, as if coming to a realisation—"you are right. I could have withstood that, and more."

Her two lower eyes darted under their lids, as if witnessing a dream. "I could not look away, because I was searching those minds for a person. I can't remember exactly who. You can tell me, Scoop—you have an analogue in your mind. Not clients, not masters, not friends—yes! You are right: it is family. You may serve for Justice, but you do not do so alone. You have a wife, and so do I. Just as the fine snow beds you remember are to you, so we were to each other: home, rest, certainty. We were two trees whose branches had intertwined. Together we might both have weathered the nightmare, at least for long enough to escape. Why did I forget?"

Her thin fingers curled. A few sparks of static snapped between them. "Only after death began to cloud the horizon did I catch a trace of her passage. I gathered our possessions, sought the trail, caught it. We could always find our way back together; but not this time."

Her third eye blinked, and Scoop felt his brain split with a thunderclap of imagery it was not equipped to comprehend. He shook his head, dizzied. "She was dead, of course; you can see that. Shot or trampled or whatever else, it doesn't matter how. She was more noble than even you, Scoop—she would have saved the lives of anyone and everyone, but for herself she wouldn't dare lift a finger. I was only in time to see her remnants being bundled up by a band of mercenaries, and her last thoughts frozen in her head: pain, pain, pain and nothing else. I wanted to—" She inhaled sharply. "Never mind. Without her, I had no lifeline, I had no comfort. For a fraction of a second my mind was wrenched open, and I could no longer distinguish my own pain in the masses of anguish and despair that flooded in. I tried to distance myself from the city. Yes, that is correct: I did not get far enough. One hundred thousand, by your count—all gone before I could control it."

A hot wind whipped violently around them. Scoop hefted his sword warily.

The Sadak fixed him with her one-eyed gaze. "This is my crime, but what should I have done?—I even let her murderers take her body as spoil. You will agree, wo'n't you, that I have not erred? What should I have done?"

"Stop this, convict," Scoop warned her.

"What should—" she stopped. The heat faded. The air stilled again.

When she resumed, her voice was again that quiet, monotonous drone. "My apologies. I don't know what I was talking about; I have forgotten. For us, that is sometimes necessary. But I believe I have made my point."

Scoop ground his teeth, circling slowly around her. "If so, it has proven nothing. What are you claiming except that, after all, you counted the safety of one person more valuable than the survival of a hundred thousand? You say you could not have predicted this? You marked everyone around you for death the moment you walked into Seveneleveia! Even the minutest possibility of danger should have been enough to keep you away. If you cannot be bothered to properly regard the value of life, you should never have been allowed near civilisation. Now, having failed the same test that every other member of your species has inevitably failed, you will be likewise judged. In no way have any of you diverted justice."

The Sadak made a placating gesture with her hands. "I was afraid you would say that. But do not worry. As I told you, it is not my own life that I ask for. Let me show you."

Slowly, she rose (Scoop perceived her feet were bare, and the soles were encrusted with dried blood) and crossed to the tent, whose existence he had almost forgotten. It had been made by an experienced hand, and until the Sadak unknotted the bindings over the opening, he could not have detected what was inside.

She reached in and tenderly withdrew something warm, wrapped in a bundle of cloth.

Scoop swallowed. He lowered his sword. "What have you—"

"The one I fled to save: our child. By your reckoning, our ultimate crime. You came here to kill me and to end the Sadak. I hope I can divert you from one of those aims."

She cradled the bundle in one arm, and gently tugged back the covering to reveal the face of an infant with three closed eyes. Its dry breath was barely perceptible; within its tiny chest Scoop could hear its heart, beating very softly and very, very slowly.

"She is called Ayla," said the mother Sadak. Her two lower eyes were half-open, gazing on the face of the child, and her third continued to watch Scoop. "Since you refuse to acknowledge my name, I will at least tell you that."

She extended her arms invitingly. "Do you want to hold her?"

Scoop's wary grimace widened. "What?"

"I promise she cannot harm you. She has entered a deep sleep to finish severing her soul from her body. When she has completed this task, she will wake up, and there will be no trace remaining of the storm that dwells within her. She will quickly age and die, but until then, she can live a life free from the burden that we bore. I wish it were possible for me to raise her, but as you saw earlier, I can no longer even contain myself. It was all I could do to protect her from me the first time I lost control."

Scoop peeled back his lips, peering suspiciously at the child with his teeth.

"You understand me, yes. She has already forgotten our culture. She cannot possibly share in our sins. Even my face will be gone from her memory by the time you split me in two. You can spare her."

"I cannot."

"If nothing else, will you not trust in a parent's love?"

Scoop looked at her, surprised. Then he scoffed. "Trust you? Never."

The Sadak sighed. "I see what you are thinking, Scoop. I have no reason to deceive you. Even if Ayla were to harness her power, without much more time and instruction, it will not be able to compare with my own, not even in undoing and destroying. If I were so foolish as to desire revenge on you or your people or anyone else, could I not carry it out myself without the ruthless sacrifice of my only kin? I need no long life for that."

Scoop saw the horizon bend like an optical illusion. Without a sound, the surface of the planet folded up to enclose them, and the sky squeezed into nothing. He drove his sword into the ground, and through it he felt the image of a universe of solid rock...

"The world is very small," said the Sadak, and all of this disappeared as if it had never happened. "I only desire a place in it for this young child. Promise me you will not deny her that."

"I—"

"Swear it on the honour of your house."

Scoop ground his teeth, but what could he do in the face of a threat like that? "I swear to the frozen heavens, to the dreams of the founders, and to the fullness of the Triple Scoop, that I will not chip a tooth of your daughter's jaw, nor spill a drop of her blood; nor will I deliver her knowingly to any one who may harm her."

The Sadak showed no emotion at this declaration. "Thank you, Scoop. You have done rightly."

She crossed to the tent, laid the infant gently inside, and knotted up the entrance. Then she walked three paces from it and knelt on the ground, laying her hands on her knees. "I can now accept your punishment."

"It's about time," Scoop growled. He slithered to her side. "For all that you deserve it, this will be painless."

She took the cloth wrappings from him silently, and wound them with expert care around her head and neck until they were completely covered. He tied them tight, and stood back.

The flat of the sword he held just under her chin. Lifting up his left arm, he swelled his hand into the shape of a hammer, harder than stone.

When had the ritual of the ice-crushing blow seemed so meaningless? But he banished the thought from his mind, and with a perfect singleness of intention, brought the hammer down.

The body went limp. Scoop let it slump to the ground. "May the frost find you even in Hell," he intoned gruffly, into the wind that had once more begun to blow. Then he lifted his sword and inserted it wholly into his mouth, blade-first, sucking it clean.

He withdrew it and strapped it once again to his back. It felt lighter, now. But he still had one duty left to execute: the fulfilment of his promise.

The child did not stir when he lifted her carefully from her cradle and laid her down on the sand. The sword would not be adequate for this task: only in a few ways could a creature be killed without spilling blood.

(Ayla was close to the end of a very long quest. The great tree's roots had almost all been severed, and it was about to fall down.)

Scoop twisted the fingers of his left hand together with his right, moulding them into the shape of a ice pick with a point as hard as diamond. He pulled the cloth aside and gently gripped the girl's forehead, tilting her head back and laying the narrow shaft just against her neck.

(The world had gone very dark because of the monster that lived in the tree. Mum and Mother had promised her a bright new sun would rise when she was finished, though.)

He held a finger just below the girl's nose to feel that soft, dry breath, being caught away by the wind. The image of the mother cradling her in his arms flashed in his mind again, and he thought of the end she was about to meet, and muttered in the cold—"Ha! Perhaps you did not love her very much, after all." But he could not persuade himself to mean it.

(Ayla laid down the axe and looked with pride on the cross-section of the greyish root she had just cut in two. But something caught her eye. There was a giant with a spear standing in front of the tree.)

He drew his arm back.

(No, she shouted, you can't kill the monster like that, that's all wrong. But the giant didn't listen.)

He thrust, and the tip of the pick shattered on the girl's skin in a crackle of lightning.

(Silly oaf! thought Ayla, as the giant fell to pieces. Now you've woken it up. Now it's going to ruin everything...)

Scoop hissed in pain, clutching his wounded limb. He steadied himself on the ground, hardened what was left of the hand, and thrust again. There was another crackle and a wrenching sound, and his forearm broke off. Goo poured from the stump. He tore off a great swathe of the bindings and tied it off until the flow stopped. Regrowing his arm nearly took all the strength he had left. He muttered an incoherent mantra to himself, trying to concentrate.

He had to finish this. Not even an oath was important enough to stop him.

As soon as his fingers had reformed, he drew his sword, lifting it high over his head and stabbing it viciously down. The tip of the blade stopped just a handspan from her forehead, grinding against an invisible surface as Scoop's arms strained and dripped. The infant girl woke up, and began to cry.

He raised up the sword and hammered it down again and again. It grew searing hot in the death-grip of his hands, and shuddered violently with each blow. The child's wailing only grew in volume—Scoop tried to ignore how familiar it sounded.

With his next desperate strike he felt something give way. There was a thunderous crash, the girl screamed, and an invisible force tore his sword from his hands and threw him back.

As Scoop staggered, the sword whipped around in a distorted circle and disappeared in the fierce rushing of an invisible gale. After a few seconds, it quieted, and once again there was silence.

He carefully approached the still shape on the ground. The child had stopped crying: she stared up at him with wide eyes and teeth just barely formed.

This time there was nothing to stop him. He laid his right hand on her forehead. Then he took it away again.

"I can't do this," he murmured to the empty desert, and to the body behind him half-covered by sand. Neither offered him any words of encouragement.

"Heavens above, I can't kill an infant," he pleaded with them. The only response was a long silence.

"Very well!" he shouted at last. "Very well! Congratulations! Your love has triumphed! You are victorious!" 

Still nothing happened, but that the baby shut her eyes and fell asleep.

"What now, then?" Scoop asked, dejectedly, but he knew already that there was only one answer. "Fine. Failure that I am, I'll do this one thing for you."

He gingerly placed Ayla back inside her little tent and knotted it up.

Then he collapsed on the ground, utterly spent. It was a few minutes before he mustered up the energy to set up a transponder, and key in a coded message.

Mission complete: mark eliminated. Discovered civilian in need of aid. Will deliver to local services before receiving next assignment.

In about five seconds the transponder displayed an automated acknowledgement, and he packed it away. The fire had gone out, he realised. He trudged over to the tent and carefully removed its central pole, then tied the cotton cloth to it like a bundle and hoisted the whole thing onto his shoulder. It was very light indeed.

He steeled what was left of his will, and set off into the wastes to find a place where his ship could collect him.

**— ( S ) —**

The way ahead was barred by thick, low-hanging branches draped in vines and moss. Scoop's brand-new sword cut through them with a single blow, and he waved his platoon forward. The droids tramped through the seeping swamp water, which came up to their heads. It seemed they could not wait to be out of it. But they were making good time, and Scoop smiled with real excitement as he surged on. The air was wonderfully humid and odorous here, and the mission was going smoothly—he had gotten a lucky deployment.

The sensor technician informed him that the fortifications had come into view on radar. He gave his acknowledgement: it seemed the distraction force had done their work, for they had met with little opposition on the way.

The turret emplacements would offer plenty of resistance themselves, of course, but that was what the droids were for. They had no sense of taste, and were not truly alive.

Scoop clicked his tongue. Apart from a few stragglers towards the rear, the sawblades had finished gathering up. He directed them to split into groups of four and spread out through the forest. The danger of being hit by an artillery shell or aerial bombardment would be greatly lessened if they attacked from multiple fronts. All but eight of the sixty-four infantry split off and went tramping slowly away. Scoop planted his sword in the muddy water and waited; the remainder of his unit took up sentinel positions as they waited for the trap to set.

(Scoop smiled at his own joke. It had been a good day.)

Then he caught a strange echo, the hint of something uncommonly large shifting past the tree-trunks behind him. He clicked his tongue three times, picturing the terrain; the sound alerted the sawblades, who snapped to attention and began scanning. There was no sign of any sort of animal, and Scoop's suspicion mounted. "Who's there?" he bellowed. "We have a special serving on offer for people who play hide-and-seek. You know what's good for you."

The swamp went totally silent at his voice, but there was no response except a faint rustling which might have been the breeze. Scoop silently signalled the droids to spread out, and called again: "Who's there?"

"Boo!" came a little voice, and Scoop doubled over as a lance of incredible pain pierced his skull. He swayed, numb and dizzy, and steadied himself on his sword. He gasped out a panicked trill that resonated through the forest.

It revealed his assailant. "You," he spat, as the girl emerged from the leaves. She was easy to recognise, dressed as she might be in armour and manacles: she had barely grown at all since he had last seen her, all those years ago. But something about her had changed, and he grimly wondered what it was. "I should have killed you when I could."

"Yeah, I know how you feel," the girl said. She stumbled as she picked her way over the roots and rocks, and Scoop could smell blood and lightning on her. "Come here! Gimme a hug. That's a death threat, by the way."

"It seems your mother was a liar," growled Scoop, backing unsteadily away. His mind spun. What had she done to him?

"Nuh-uh! _You're_ it." She kept on coming closer. "You made me this way. Can't pass it off that easily."

"I did what was right." Scoop steeled his arms, grinning ferociously. The sawblades weren't doing anything. Why?

"Sure! And here's what you get for that, mister boo-hoo-hoo-think-of-all-the-dead-people." The little Sadak blinked rapidly as she approached him. Blood trickled from the eye in the middle of her forehead as it cracked open. "So, I mean, let's do it now! Murder, justice, whatever. It'll be way more fun than last time, 'cause now one of us _is actually gonna have to finish the job_!"


End file.
